With the increasing capacity of small portable media (e.g. Flash drives) comes the increasing danger of losing confidential information. The increasing capacity of portable media facilitates their use as viable storage in institutions that may possess large amounts of confidential information. A lost Flash drive is a common problem. It is not the cost of replacement that is the issue, it is the leakage of confidential information and susceptibility to litigation and fines.
In an effort to protect confidential information, many vendors of mass storage media include algorithms for encrypting information as it is stored internally. In the event the drive is lost, confidential information remains inaccessible due to its obfuscation. Corporate and government organizations sensitive to confidentiality issues have to rely on policies that advocate the use of encrypted drives. Many companies restrict use of removable storage by policy to keep sensitive information from being disclosed unintentionally. Some go as far as to block physical access to USB ports.
Currently, computers have no way to verify that attached external storage supports an appropriate level of encryption. Thus, there is a serious problem with a host computer system being able to distinguish between a mass storage equipped with encryption algorithms and a drive that simply stores information as clear text. A host computer system could simply query the portable media system as to its capabilities but the host computer system could easily be ‘spoofed.’ This is because the internal encryption algorithm in a portable media system is not accessible to a host computer system either directly or indirectly. A host computer always exchanges information with encrypted media in clear information form, which is identical to an information exchange with unencrypted media.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.